Day 2 at TED ofcourse did not disappoint – how could I even think it would. What did surprise I think all of us (probably with the exception of Chris and the TED team) was the stark contrast between two brilliant talks. These two discussions presented a very different view of our collective future. This was the “how full is the glass session”

First up was Paul Gilding – former CEO of Greenpeace. Paul’s basic premise was that we are already beyond the point where the planet can sustain us and that in order to support the economy over the next few decades we will need 1.5x the earths resources to do so. Essentially his talk was a call to arms stating that a “crises is a terrible thing to waste” (reminded me of Rahm Emanuel comments about the economic downturn).

Paul knows what he is talking about, is a great speaker and his talk had some good facts – in summary it was depressing !

But here comes the ying to Paul’s yang. Next up was Peter Diamandis – founder of the X Prize and self titled space activist. I had known of Peter ofcourse but had never heard him speak – he is a powerful and passionate speaker. Peter view of the future was not only a full glass, but I would say an overflowing glass. He talked of abundance, he talked of all the incredible positive changes that have occurred over the years, mortality, technology, standard of living etc. His basic view was that we tend to focus on the negative because the media focuses on the negative but we have an incredible abundant future that we can shape. To be fair, he did not ignore the problems of the current like global warming, population growth etc. but be just said we will not only survive but thrive in the future.

So by this time I was feeling much better about the world and the future.

These are two very different view of the world and our collective future – I don’t think one is right, or one is wrong, though I personally gravitate towards Peter’s world view – maybe because I have more hope in humanity or maybe because it is easier to feel good about the positive scenario.

Here we go again, TED 2012 started yesterday in Long Beach. I decided this year to do a short blog post every day on the talk or conversation that most inspired me. Yesterday we had the amazing TEDFellows make their presentations. Wonderful to see these ideas being presented in such a passionate and clear way. There were many great presentations but the one that struck me most was by Ayah Bdeir – Founder of LittleBits . Essential LittleBits is concept where Lego meets engineering.

My younger daughter is a fascinated by building Lego models – but honestly there are just so many Pirates of the Caribbean ships you can build. We need to find more interesting ways in which our children can experience the joy of building new things. LittleBits create a fun, creative and powerful new way for kids to learn how to build great new products. Here is how the LittleBits team describes what they do

“Just as LEGOs™ allow you to create complex structures with very little engineering knowledge, littleBits are simple, intuitive, space-sensitive blocks that make prototyping with sophisticated electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together. Each bit has a simple, unique function (light, sound, sensors, buttons, thresholds, pulse, motors, etc), and modules snap to make larger circuits. With a growing number of available modules, LittleBits aims to move electronics from late stages of the design process to its earliest ones, and from the hands of experts, to those of artists, makers, students and designers.”

True to form the TED team included a LittleBits starter kits in our bag of goodies. Even though there were only a couple of pieces to connect I was fascinated by the simplicity of the parts and how they connected.

Here is a great video showing how to build and have fun with LittleBits. Congratulations to Ayah and her team for creating this great product.

I have been attending TED for a couple of years and again this year was amazed by the speakers and their insights. For those of you not familiar with TED I would suggest that you visit the TED website where you will find a treasure chest of the most amazing talks on a broad range of subjects – I guarantee that you will be inspired.

TED 2010 did not disappoint – far from it. Several talks inspired me personally but there was one that stood out for its simple yet profound insight – Daniel Kahneman’s talk on “The Riddle of experience vs. memory”. Widely regarded as the world’s most influential living psychologist, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel in Economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics — exploring the irrational ways we make decisions about risk (TED description). I have the deepest respect for people who can take the most complex of subjects and explain them in the most simplest of ways – this is was Daniel was able to do.

Now I will certainly not try to summarize or fully explain Daniel’s talk in this blog – for that I suggest that you visit the TED website to listen to the talk first hand. Let me though try and provide you with the basic premise of his talk. Daniel talks about the “confusion between experience and memory: basically it’s between being happy in your life and being happy about your life or happy with your life”. He provides several examples of the difference between the two. In one example Daniel talks about a person who listens to 20 minutes of glorious symphony music yet at the very end there is a dreadful screeching sound. In reporting this incident the listener said that the screeching sound had “ruined the whole experience”. Yet, as Daniel notes, the experience had not been ruined – ” What it had ruined were the memories of the experience. He had had the experience. He had had 20 minutes of glorious music. That counted for nothing because he was left with a memory; the memory was ruined, and the memory was all that he had gotten to keep.”

“What this is telling us, really, is that we might be thinking of ourselves and of other people in terms of two selves. There is an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present, is capable of re-living the past, but basically it has only the present. It’s the experiencing self that the doctor approaches — you know, when the doctor asks, “Does it hurt now when I touch you here?” And then there is a remembering self, and the remembering self is the one that keeps score, and maintains the story of our life, and it’s the one that the doctor approaches in asking the question, “How have you been feeling lately?” or “How was your trip to Albania?” or something like that. Those are two very different entities, the experiencing self and the remembering self and getting confused between them is part of the mess of the notion of happiness. Now, the remembering self is a storyteller. And that really starts with a basic response of our memories –it starts immediately. We don’t only tell stories when we set out to tell stories. Our memory tells us stories, that is, what we get to keep from our experiences is a story. ” (quoted text is an excerpt from transcript of Daniel Kahneman’s 2010 TED Talk)

Implications for Software Design: Daniel Kahneman’s talk and insights provide important lessons for the technology industry. I think that we in the technology industry – especially the enterprise software industry – have forgotten how important it is for users to be happy when using our software products. Consumers take for granted that the software product will deliver on the basic function that it is designed to achieve – complete a purchase request, format a document or manage a supply chain. However, all to often the software is difficult to use, not intuitive and requires too many steps to complete a simple task.

If you view Daniel’s full TED Talk you will note that in essence what he is saying is that your memory of a particular situation or event matters more than the experience of that event or situation. This insight can have important implications on how we design software to ensure that the memory of the use of the software is positive – even if the experience during the use was painful. Maybe Apple had this figured out a long time ago !